


Elpis

by garrideb



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutant Rights, Post-Movie(s), Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5269403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrideb/pseuds/garrideb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charles and Erik converge on the same site with very different mission plans, an accident and an injury force them to hash out their differences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elpis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lefaym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to my lovely beta, destroythemeek!

Charles's first clue that the Brotherhood of Mutants was converging on the Maplewood Hospital was the electric pulse of Erik's mind. He could sense it from high above in the Blackbird, even though Charles was still several miles away from the isolated facility. 

Erik's mind had always called out to him, singular in its brightness. Even now, the initial telepathic brush of Erik's mind still filled Charles with longing. He had to consciously push it down, force himself to be aloof. 

Charles hated it. 

It had been years since he and Erik could have been considered friends by any reasonable standard. They'd had a few conversations that hadn't devolved into fights between the Brotherhood and the X-Men, but only because occasionally they met without their teams. And even then one or both of them was reduced to inarticulate cursing, and Erik usually brought his helmet so he could shove it on his head whenever Charles tried to share his point of view telepathically because words had failed him.

The fact that Erik wasn't wearing it now could only mean that Erik didn't expect Charles. Small blessings; Charles actually had surprise on his side for once. Maybe he could stop the attack before it started. 

He gently brought the Blackbird down to a lower altitude. He was almost as good a pilot as Hank, who had taught him how to fly. He couldn't land with the same smooth elegance as the Beast, but Charles was working on it. He still had a few competitive bones in his body, and since he was no longer up to drinking a yard of ale he had to find alternative ways to show off. Besides, it wouldn’t do to let Hank be the best at everything. 

If Erik had stuck around, he would have excelled at aviation lessons, Charles was sure. Raven would have too; she’d always loved to drive and had a deft hand with any car she tried. 

She wasn't down below with Erik. Neither were Emma, Angel, Azazel, or Janos. The Brotherhood had grown so much in the past few years, and these days Charles rarely recognized their members. It was a sign he was getting old that Charles preferred the original mutants of Erik's team to most of the newer recruits. He'd read several of their minds and they never seemed to care as much about Erik, often bordering on disrespectful. 

Charles shook his head as he double-checked his speed and altitude. It was probably sick that he wanted the Brotherhood of Mutants to have higher standards of loyalty. After everything Erik had done, he deserved to sit atop the powder keg that he had created.

Down below, the rural snowscape looked quiet and peaceful. The roads were infrequent, farm fields plentiful. 

Touching his temple, Charles reached out. Erik was in the passenger seat of a car with three other mutants. Two more were in a second car. 

_Erik_ , Charles greeted as neutrally as possible.

Surprise and anger flared in Erik's mind, but when he answered his mental voice was steady. _Charles. What are you doing here?_

_I have an appointment with the Head Physician at Maplewood._

There was a stony pause. Charles could feel Erik's irritation spit like hot oil. _They keep mutants here, Charles. Against their will._

 _I know._ Charles checked the dials again, giving himself a moment to compose his defense. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I decided to talk to a sympathetic doctor before breaking out inpatients, he thought to himself and grimaced. _Erik, I know. The head physician contacted me personally about the matter. I'm here to evaluate the situation._

_Evaluate._

_And take action, of course, but everyone in this facility was admitted for a reason. I need to verify that any mutant who leaves with me does so voluntarily and safely._

_Freedom isn't safe,_ Erik hissed in their heads. _It isn't meant to be. If you leave a single mutant behind in that glorified prison, you are condemning them to a -- to a half-life. A safe one, I am sure, Charles, but one devoid of any meaning._

 _I spent some time in a human-run hospital after I was shot. It wasn't so bad,_ Charles answered, mostly because he didn't need another beaten dead horse to add to his collection. In truth, he'd only spent a week there before Hank had reluctantly admitted that he'd read several textbooks and journal articles on spinal injury since Cuba, and was maybe capable of overseeing Charles's recovery at home. But Erik didn't know that. Probably.

Charles expected the blatant fallacy to enrage Erik, but if anything he swore he could feel Erik smile. _Some day you'll stumble into a cage with less gilding, and you'll change your mind about humans._ For an instant Erik's thoughts almost felt affectionate. _I'll reach the facility long before you can land your plane. You might as well head back to your school._ And then Erik's bright mind was eclipsed as he slid on that ugly, jarring helmet. 

No matter what terrible things flew out of Erik's thoughts, Charles hated losing contact. It should have been a relief to stop sensing Erik's desire for revenge, but instead it felt like a lost opportunity to find the corners of Erik's mind where violence didn't reign. 

It was like standing next to Pandora's box, knowing that you could find proof that hope was still inside, but only by opening the box again. 

Damn the consequences. Charles would always want to open the box. 

Frowning, Charles skimmed the minds of the other Brotherhood mutants. They'd had shielding lessons from Ms. Frost, it seemed. All of them were at least adequate except for one. The driver of Erik's car had a mind like fairy lights, thoughts scattered and unprotected by the rudimentary deflection techniques. Inside, Charles could see the intention to destroy Maplewood.

This was not how today was supposed to go.

If he'd even considered a run-in with the Brotherhood, he would have brought others, but most of the X-Men were dealing with a matter in Canada. Besides, he and Dr. Ciesielski had talked extensively on the phone and Charles felt he could trust him. He'd planned to land the plane (almost as well as Hank), decline an offer of coffee, talk to the five mutants at the facility, and leave with all or most of them.

A cake walk, as Raven used to say.

Instead of the carnival game, Raven's mind would offer up a split-second free association fantasy of stomping on cakes, which had always made Charles laugh. Her silliness had always been infectious. 

"A cake walk," Charles muttered and imagined his telepathic power descending from the Blackbird like a giant foot to stomp on the car below, although all he did in reality was force the driver to hit the brakes. 

This trip wouldn't be as smooth as he had planned, but it would still be easy. 

He could hear Erik's voice through the driver's ears. "Stygian is compromised. Zorina, fire a warning shot to break Xavier's concentration."

The next instant the plane rocked as a pulse of energy rose up from below. Charles's seatbelt kept him in place, but he had to drop his link with the driver to focus on steadying the plane. 

When he returned to the young mutant's mind, Erik was talking. "-still hear me, Charles, turn back now. If you're too squeamish to help, that's fine. But you will not stand in my way."

Startled, Charles laughed. He'd never in his life been accused of being squeamish. He used Stygian's mouth to laugh, purely by reflex, though to Erik it must have looked like a declaration of defiance. It wasn't Erik who reacted, however; it was Zorina, the dark-haired woman seated behind Stygian. 

Charles quickly realized the scope of his mistake. Zorina's mental shields came crashing down when Charles laughed. She'd never seen a person be telepathically controlled before. She instantly equated it with demonic possession, a concept introduced to her in catechism but fleshed out in the horror comics she'd stolen from her older siblings and read at night. It terrified her. 

She aimed another bolt at the plane, twice as powerful as the first. It slammed the plane upward with a sound like cannon fire. Charles was crushed into his seat by the force of the acceleration. In the next instant the Blackbird was careening towards the earth. Both engines were damaged. 

He heard Erik bark, "Enough!" and it took Charles a moment to realize he was still listening in through Stygian's ears. He pulled back. Erik's voice had reminded him of another time in a doomed plane, and for a ghost of a moment Charles remembered Erik holding him like a human seat belt. Well, he had a real seat belt this time. He tried to fill his head with the memory of Hank's calm instructions.

Thankfully he wasn't over a city. The snow-covered landscape below was comprised of farmland and patches of woods, criss-crossed with infrequent roads. With luck he'd land in an empty farm field and endanger no one's life but his own. 

His options were severely limited by how quickly he was losing altitude. Maybe that wasn't so bad; it also meant he had little time to second-guess himself, little time to panic. He had a snowy field and marginal control over the angle of the plane. It would have to be enough. 

Seconds from impact the Blackbird slowed noticeably. Charles stared at the controls, confused. Then he hit the ground. 

The plane tore a furrow through the earth, snow and dirt spraying past the windshield. Charles was thrown into his seat belt with such force that he lost his breath and lost time. He could feel the plane tilting and hear the screeching and snapping of tortured metal, but his eyes were closed and all outside input was secondary to the burning in his chest. 

When the noise and movement stopped he opened his eyes. The pain spiked when he tried to breathe. His ears were ringing and all he could do was gasp. 

Finally the pain subsided enough to move. He released his seat belt and the fasteners securing his wheelchair to the cockpit floor. Thank god they'd held. It hurt to bend over and it hurt to turn his head, but he was alive. Soreness was a small price to pay for surviving the impact. 

He didn't see any obvious signs of injury. "Maybe a cracked rib," he told himself out loud, partly to check his hearing. "You're lucky. You probably have Hank's engineering to thank. Remember to buy him something nice. That new centrifuge he's been talking about--"

He smelled smoke and his rambling cut off mid-thought. The air was getting hazy in the back of the plane.

Charles looked out the windows on both sides. The right wing was burning but the left wing -- well, the left wing was gone, apparently sheared off in the crash. Too bad the ramp was on the right side. "You're not lucky yet," he muttered to himself, shoving on his gloves and rolling himself quickly to the exit. 

The door only lowered a few inches before jamming. Charles pushed and it fell the rest of the way, letting in a wave of hot air. Charles pulled his coat collar up to protect his face and maneuvered down the ramp. The plane had come to rest angled to the right, so Charles had to duck to clear the plane, but thankfully he didn't have to jump chair and crawl out. 

The ramp took him painfully close to the fire. He curled his body away from the incredible heat and let gravity speed him along until he came to a stop on the snowy ground.

The hand that had passed closest to the fire suddenly burned, and Charles saw his glove was on fire. Panicked, he tugged it off and threw it to the ground. It smoldered gently in the snow. Charles let out a wordless noise of frustration and propelled himself forward. 

There were some small mercies. The snow wasn't that deep. The ground beneath was frozen solid, so he didn't have to contend with slush or mud. He had to push much harder and he wasn't going nearly as fast as he would have liked, but at least he wasn't spinning in place, and his footrests were high enough that his feet didn't drag in the snow. 

It was alarming how the glow of the fire got brighter by the second, making the snow ahead of him whiter and the shadows darker. It was much warmer behind him, too, but he steadily moved away from the warmth, resisting the urge to glance back at the burning wreckage. 

His one bare hand was already numb from operating a snow-encrusted wheel for just a couple minutes. That damn glove. He'd liked that glove. Trusted that glove. And it had the nerve to betray him. 

Charles laughed. It was just him alone in his head now; it was safe to laugh. No one would mistake him for a demonic possession. He didn't really blame the young mutant for her reaction. He just wasn't sure if he or Erik held the lion’s share of blame for this particular disaster. 

It was a shame about the Blackbird, though. He'd never be able to convince Hank that he'd executed a perfect landing, not when it was on fire and missing a wing. 

That poor wing. His poor glove. Maybe they could console each other, abandoned in a frosty farm field together. 

A wave of dizziness washed over him, and Charles lowered his head to his knees. The position hurt his chest and neck and abdomen and… well, all of him. But it helped ease the nauseating sense of spinning. It was strange; he hadn't been out in the cold long enough to become hypothermic, and he was wearing a good coat besides. So why did he feel so weak?

Maybe pushing his wheelchair through the snow was much more draining than he'd thought, but adrenaline had carried him along until now.

Light flared around him, and in the next second came the boom of an explosion. Charles covered his head with his arms, still hunched over. When no burning debris rained down, he cautiously looked back. He was further from the wreckage than he'd imagined. The twin tracks of his wheels marked his progress across the white field. 

As did the dark spots scattered liberally between the wheel tracks.

Oh.

He twisted further to look more closely behind him and yes, that was a trail of blood staining the snow. Quite a bit of it. No wonder he was feeling light-headed. 

_Charles?_

It was Erik's voice. Charles hated that relief was his first reaction. Erik's team was the reason he was bleeding in the middle of nowhere. Maybe they'd come to finish the job. Charles didn't really believe that, but the fact that he could even briefly consider it was bad enough. 

_Charles, can you hear me?_ Erik sounded frantic, so that probably confirmed that Erik didn't want to kill him. And honestly, Erik was probably correct to sound frantic, because everything was going inexplicably dark. 

_Yes, I can hear you. You took off your helmet._

_Charles!_ Erik's emotional response was gratifying, because it matched his own traitorous relief so closely. _I can sense the metal in the plane. I'm coming to get you._

_Every time you take off your helmet we fight. I watch all the terrible things come flying out of your mind... and then I dive right in looking for hope, as if she might still be cowering somewhere behind the anger and fear... but you shut the box before I can find hope. And then-- and then I wait until you take your helmet off again, and I do it over and over..._

_Are you still in the plane? If you can, you need to get out._

Charles sighed. He could barely see the ground in front of him, but he felt pleasantly warm. _Yes, I'm out of the plane. Although it's possible there's a piece of the plane in me._

_What?_

_I shouldn't have thrown my glove in the snow,_ Charles told Erik, before passing out.

* * *

When Charles next woke up he felt terrible. Gone was the hazy disassociation from before. His entire upper body ached, especially his chest, neck, and head. Deep breaths caused the pain to spike. He tried to breath shallowly, but that made him dizzy.

 _Erik…?_ He tried, but he couldn't sense any minds around him. That was when he actually looked at his surroundings. 

He was in a small room with metal walls, tucked into a simple but warm bed. The only other furnishings were a chair in one corner and a nightstand next to the bed. Atop the nightstand stood an empty glass and a metal carafe of ice water.

Just looking at it unlocked an intense thirst, but he was exhausted and the idea of moving seemed beyond him. He fell asleep quickly. 

The next time he came awake it was to the sound of Erik entering his room. He looked haggard, with dark circles under his eyes. His simple outfit of a black turtleneck and slacks looked rumpled and slept-in. He had his helmet underneath one arm, which he placed on the nightstand. The chair -- which was mostly metal -- floated over to Erik and he sat down. 

Charles waited for a few seconds but it appeared Erik didn't have any grand speech planned. So he pulled himself up to a sitting position and reached for the water carafe. On a whim he jerked his hand as he lifted it, knocking the helmet to the floor. It made a satisfying noise against the concrete. Charles hoped he had scuffed it.

"Sorry, I'm a bit unsteady," Charles said, and poured a glass of water with perfectly steady hands.

Erik raised an eyebrow. 

The water tasted heavenly. He drank it all in one go and then cleared his throat. His voice sounded less like a tumbleweed this time. "Are you going to tell me what happened, or should I just--" he waved his fingers near his head.

"You're welcome to check my memory of the events," Erik said, and Charles got the impression he was waiting for Charles to do just that. Erik must have thought that his memory would prove his innocence, as it were. What did he expect, that once Charles had proof that the plane crash had been more-or-less accidental, they could forget the whole thing and go back to status quo?

Charles fought against a wave of exhaustion. "Why don't you just tell me."

Erik's eyes darted downward. Disappointment, maybe. "When you interrupted our mission to liberate mutants by using mind control against us, one of my team downed your plane _against my orders_ , although I feel it was an understandable reaction. You don't realize how frightening you are when you talk through someone else, do you?"

Charles snorted. "You were bringing a team to destroy a building full of -- discounting a few wrongly committed mutants -- ill people. And you think I'm frightening?"

"There are different kinds of frightening. Laughing with someone else's mouth is in its own league."

"You shouldn't have made me laugh while I was mind-controlling your driver, then."

Erik stared. "I don't think you realize which part of _mind-controlled laughter_ is the unsettling part."

Charles shrugged. Even that hurt, and he winced, feeling his anger increase. "Watching you impale people with pieces of metal is unsettling, too. You keep doing it."

"Not this time!" Erik replied, with much more force and emotion than Charles was expecting. 

"Pardon?"

Erik sighed and stood up. He paced the few steps to the far side of the room, and spoke while facing away. "I wasn't responsible for this piece of metal."

"What piece of metal?"

Erik came back to the bed and held out his hand. Above his palm floated a small, jagged rod. Charles reached out and took it, turning it over in his hands. "Oh, it's part of the brake lever," he realized. "Where did you find it?"

"In your thigh." 

"Well. That does explain all the blood."

Erik was stone-faced. "Angel stitched you up."

"Angel?" Charles set the broken piece of lever down on the nightstand, as if he intended to keep it. Better than handing it back to Erik, who really didn't need additional tokens to brood over. Charles found the idea of Angel performing first aid both interesting and calming; he hated the idea of being unconscious and under the knife in a Brotherhood of Mutants stronghold, but he knew Angel. No matter her motives for joining the Brotherhood, she was neither petty nor cruel. 

"I took her out of the field due to an injury a while back, and she started studying medicine. She's very good."

Charles reached down to his thigh and found the injury, carefully covered with gauze. "Send her my thanks."

Erik nodded.

"And if she'd ever like to teach a session on first-aid, or join me and Hank in attending a seminar--"

"Stop that," Erik interrupted. "Stop spinning fantasies of a -- of a truce, or some kind of mutant exchange program. A member of my team injured you, so I'm treating you. This isn't an olive branch. Raven has already called Hank and told him what's going on, so your X-Men will come collect you as soon as it's safe for you to travel. You also cracked two ribs."

Charles looked down at his hands, folded atop the blanket. "Raven is here?"

"She left. She did sit with you, earlier."

"How is she?"

"Charles, stop."

"I can't ask about my sister?"

"This isn't a social visit."

"Right. You're just here to make sure I know that you're simultaneously sorry and blameless for the plane crash."

The water carafe crumpled, spilling ice and water onto the nightstand. Charles pointedly didn't react. 

Erik sighed. "Raven is doing well."

"Thank you."

Erik got up and left. Charles didn't try to stop him; he was still very tired so he curled up on his side on the bed, arranging a pillow between his legs, as comfortable as his ribs would allow. He was surprised when Erik came back just a few minutes later with a towel and a bowl of soup, and a fresh water carafe. 

Erik paused for a second when he saw Charles was no longer sitting up. "I thought you might be hungry," he said as he toweled off the nightstand and set down the soup. 

"Maybe in a bit. Who knew blood loss could be so exhausting?"

"Most people."

Charles smiled. "I thought you'd left for the day."

"You weren't listening in?"

"To your thoughts? No."

Erik sat down and began eating the soup. Oddly enough, that simple, straightforward action -- eating the soup that was meant for Charles -- charmed him. It seemed to say, what's mine is yours. Or, there's plenty more where this came from, no point in letting this go cold. 

Sharing food was such a basic symbol of family. It was no wonder Charles liked the idea. But he really was grasping at straws. He steeled himself and asked the question he'd been holding back since he woke up. "What happened to the mutants at Maplewood?"

"Are you worried that I burned the hospital down?"

What was the point in lying? "Yes."

Erik poured himself water, using the same glass Charles had used. "I went in alone. I found the doctor you had an appointment with, and told him I had come in your place. I don't think he believed me. I do think he was scared shitless. He took me to the five mutants. I asked each one if they wanted to leave with me. All but one said yes."

"All but one?"

"Yes, but she was heavily drugged. I brought her back anyway. Once she has a clearer mind she can decide what to do."

"She might need those drugs."

"She might not. I suppose you'd like to speak with her?"

"With all of them, yes."

Erik nodded. "Some of them might be a better fit for your school. Just as long as it's their decision."

"Of course." Charles took a breath and steeled himself again. "You left Maplewood… intact?"

Erik's amusement was evident in the quirk of his eyebrow. "More or less. I didn't kill anyone. I did take most of their records. I assume you'll be following up on this troubling situation?"

Charles nodded, aware of how much trust Erik was placing in him. Compared to everything Erik had done it was a small gesture, but in light of the boundless destruction Erik was willing to cause in the wake of his war, it meant everything. 

"Good. I'd hate to have to make that drive a second time. It pains me to say this, but yours was the best conversation I had the whole trip."

"Not up to speed with young mutants?"

"I don't understand half the things they say."

Charles smiled.

Erik finished and put down the bowl. "Have you been avoiding my mind, Charles?"

That gave Charles pause. Had he been? He wasn’t sure. "Not particularly."

"Before you passed out, you compared my mind to Pandora's box."

Charles remembered. Feeling generous, he offered, "I always liked ancient Greek myths."

Erik smiled. "So did my mother. To be fair, she liked all stories. She read to me every night and I think it was as much for her as it was for me. We had a book of Greek myths. She liked finding comparisons between the story of Pandora's Box and the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden.

"She would point out other things, too. That Pandora was given a large jar, but a mistranslation changed jar to box and that version stuck. Also, we don't know if trapping Hope in the box meant that the world was given hope, or denied hope. After all, releasing Death and Disease from the jar was what inflicted them on the world, so logically keeping Hope in the jar meant the world wasn't given hope."

Charles let his eyes slip shut. "I had a professor who claimed that _Elpis_ wasn't hope, but another curse sent by Zeus. She was… premonition, I suppose, or precognition. So by trapping her in the box, Pandora saved people from knowing what terrible things would happen to them. We have hope because we weren't inflicted with premonition."

"I've known several times in my life that I was going to die. Not just thought I might die, but _known_ I would. That I didn't was a -- a fluke. Certain death doesn't have to crush the spirit. It can be empowering."

Charles considered that, though that mostly consisted of feeling thankful Erik had survived so far. "To be honest I never agreed with that professor. _Elpis_ is clearly the symbol of hope."

They sat in silence for a moment. Charles was very close to drifting off when Erik asked, "Is that why you insist on trying to recruit every human you meet to our cause? You can't resist opening up their minds and looking for that lost grain of compassion, even as they betray us and kill us and throw every evil in the world at us."

Charles thought of all the people he'd met who wanted to do the right thing, but who had to navigate the pitfalls of their own minds first, dodging apathy and ducking prejudice and climbing past decades’ worth of distrust and doubt. Some people had the spirit of a knight hidden beneath layers of dust. They just needed a push. "Yes," he told Erik. "What if that's true?"

"I think it’s pretty clear in the story. You'll do more harm than good."

Charles felt his heart twist. Maybe he would. But he knew he would never stop. Maybe this was why he needed Erik. 

But what could he say that would change anything? He was too exhausted to try at the moment. Instead he forced levity into his voice. "I think you just compared me to Pandora. Should I be flattered? I'm choosing to be flattered."

"You're as foolish as she was."

"Guilty as charged, I suppose."

"And probably as beautiful."

Charles opened his eyes. Erik was gazing down at him fondly. It was remarkable how he could believe Charles capable of terrible things -- complacency, ignorance, naivety -- and also believe him capable of strength and insight. And it was true, Charles would always look for the best in people, just as Erik clearly kept looking for the best in Charles, even as they violently disagreed on what those qualities were. 

Charles smiled up at Erik, just as Erik leaned down and kissed him softly. It lasted only a few seconds, but Charles let himself enjoy it to the fullest, sliding into Erik's mind to feel the kiss from both sides and to luxuriate in Erik's emotions. The devotion Erik felt for Charles was fractured and warped, veins of anger and bitterness waiting to be unearthed at a moment's notice. Charles couldn't imagine anything as familiar, beautiful, or comforting. He couldn't imagine ever falling out of love with Erik.

"There you are," Erik said, and returned the smile. "You should get some rest."

Charles had been fighting against the tug of sleep, but now he let it pull him under. He heard Erik walk to the door, pausing to pick up the helmet from the floor. Just before he left, Charles thought he heard Erik think, _If you can't find hope in my mind, it's only because I found her a better home in yours._


End file.
